FACING THE FUTURE; AREA COMPANY CUTS COSTS WITH ITS VIDEOPHONE.Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer A picture might be worth a thousand words, but it will retail for about $500, thanks to a new electronic product that connects televisions to telephones and creates a video communications device Typically refers to a terminal used to send voice, video or text. Mobile phones, wireless PDAs and personal computers equipped with microphones, speakers and cameras are all considered communications devices. See modem. . FutureNet Online Inc., a network marketing company based in Valencia for the past year, sells Internet-access products through its independent distributors around the world and through computer orders over the World Wide Web. This month, the firm began a business partnership with ViaTV Phone. FutureNet Online will sell the videophones, manufactured by the Santa Clara Santa Clara, city, Cuba Santa Clara (sän`tä klä`rä), city (1994 est. pop. 217,000), capital of Villa Clara prov., central Cuba. County-based firm 8x8 Inc. The arrangement between FutureNet Online and 8x8 will make the videophones more widely available to consumers and businesses. Company officials describe ViaTV as ``the first easy-to-use and truly affordable videophone (1) (VideoPhone) A line of videophones (definition #1 below) from AT&T that were introduced in the early 1990s and later pulled off the market due to poor sales. The first models came with a price tag above $1,000, and a pair were needed. See Picturephone. .'' FutureNet Online representatives will demonstrate the new technology as part of a mass-marketing strategy that will allow consumers to try out ViaTV. Less than two weeks ago, FutureNet Online's sales force began marketing the product through nationwide sales seminars and in-home presentations. ViaTV transmits audio and video telephone calls - in color - over standard telephone lines with a digital camera that is plugged into a regular telephone jack. The image can be adjusted for visual sharpness, but as a trade-off the movements of the people on the line appear more jumpy and jerky jerky see biltong. on the TV screen. To see more fluid movement, the ViaTV device can be adjusted - but as a result, some clarity will be lost. Still, FutureNet Online Chairman Alan Setlin said Tuesday that ViaTV is the best technology available for a low price. Its manufacturer's suggested retail price of $549 is further discounted by a $50-off coupon, a price that Setlin says makes the product accessible to a wider spectrum of people than, for instance, a Philips Magnavox videophone that sells for $10,000. Setlin has enlisted en·list·ed adj. Of, relating to, or being a member of a military rank below a commissioned officer or warrant officer. enlisted Adjective his 90-year-old mother, Alice, to demonstrate the videophone for prospective buyers and at electronics conventions. He sent her one of the devices so she could keep in more vivid touch with her children and grandchildren GRANDCHILDREN, domestic relations. The children of one's children. Sometimes these may claim bequests given in a will to children, though in general they can make no such claim. 6 Co. 16. . On Tuesday, Setlin placed a call to her Miami Beach Miami Beach, city (1990 pop. 92,639), Dade co., SE Fla., on an island between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean; inc. 1915. It is connected to Miami by four causeways. , Fla., home, where she said she has no difficulty operating the ViaTV videophone. ``It's very simple, sweetheart,'' Alice Setlin said. ``I talk to my daughter in Germany - same price as a regular phone call,'' Alan Setlin said. His wife uses the device to call her mother in Iowa and his son-in-law talks on the videophone to relatives in Kuwait. ``It's a wonderful little product,'' he said. Placing a video call is nearly as simple as making a telephone call. ViaTV first connects both parties with the audio feed only, and then either person may activate the video display by pushing two buttons on their touch-tone telephone. Video calls cost the same as any local or long-distance telephone call, and there are no monthly service charges or subscription fees for using the product, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. company officials at 8x8. Callers using ViaTV videophones can adjust the camera that transmits their image to the other person. The user can make the camera pan from side to side, tilt up Tilt up or tilt-slab is a type of building, and a construction technique using concrete. The process resembles barn raising specifically and wood platform framing generally. It is very cost-effective for low buildings. and down, zoom To change from a distant view to a more close-up view (zoom in) and vice versa (zoom out). An application may provide fixed or variable levels of zoom. A display adapter may also have built-in zoom capability. in for a close-up, freeze a video image and use caller-identification technology that displays the phone number of the incoming call. A manufacturer of video-conferencing systems, semiconductors and software, 8x8 is based in the San Francisco Bay Area “Bay Area” redirects here. For other uses, see Bay Area (disambiguation). The San Francisco Bay Area, colloquially known as the Bay Area or The Bay city of Santa Clara. ``FutureNet, with thousands of sales consultants across the U.S., can expand the penetration and market awareness of the ViaTV products,'' said Chris McNiffe, a vice president of sales and marketing for 8x8. CAPTION(S): 2 Photos Photo: (1--color) Alan Setlin of Valencia-based network marketer FutureNet Online Inc., operates the camera on a ViaTV videophone device. (2) Alan Setlin speaks screen-to-screen with his mother, Alice, who lives in Miami Beach, Fla. Hans Gutknecht/Daily News |
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